I'm guessing that I am not the first person to ask for a feature to merge duplicate records. It would be nice to be able to tell the software that Record X refers to the same Person as Record Y (and perhaps Record Z, as well), and have the software merge all the information and relationships into a single record and delete the duplicate(s).
Your FAQ says, "Go to the card with the least amount of information, and delete it by right clicking on it, and choosing Person > Delete person."
STOP THERE.
That "least amount of information" is going to be deleted. All notes, citations, facts, photo attachments will be gone.
This should say, "2. Go to the card with the least amount of information. Carefully and laboriously, one item at a time, copy all your information from this card and paste it into the card you plan to keep."
Wouldn't it be so much simpler if you could "merge individuals" within your own family tree, just as you can merge Smart Matches? The code for that is already written, works well, and could probably be reused and adapted.
Even though none of the Smart Matches I've found had any kind of citation (that I've seen), it would be great if the "Merge individuals" could copy over all notes, citations, photo attachments, etc.
I know the real issue is that you would like to see a merge function that can cleanly merge duplicate individuals.
Unfortunately we haven't implemented this yet.
Hmm, I recently rejoined Ancestry.com and find that I can merge individuals easily there.
There has been no revision to FTB since December 2011. No new development in well over a year. Promised features have not shown up. I see I'm paid up until November 2013. If there's nothing new by then, I plan to cancel my subscription.
